Morning Joe - Joe on outcome in Virginia: There’s always blowback to Trump’s instinct and usually it’s bad for GOP

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

Joe on outcome in Virginia: There’s always blowback to Trump’s instinct and usually it’s bad for GOP To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's essential that there's a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives come next January after a win in the midterms because we need a House of Representatives that will be in the majority to conduct vigorous oversight of just about every federal agency and department at this moment to ensure accountability and to hold this president and his administration accountable to the people, to our Constitution. and to our country. That is Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger last night. After voters in her state approved a constitutional amendment to redraw congressional districts ahead of this year's midterms,

the results prompted this response from Rory Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, who usually writes in favor of most everything Donald Trump does, he wrote this, quote, if you're going to pick a fight,

at least win it. He continues, all this was foreseeable and avoidable. We should not have started this fight. Good morning. Welcome morning, Joe. It's Wednesday, April 22nd. With us, we have co-host for 9 a.m. Hour. Staff writer for the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemure, also co-host to the rest of politics podcast, the BBC's Caddy Kay, U.S. national editor and columnist at the Financial Times, Zedlucin. Sheena, a writer at the dispatch, and a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, David Drucker, Willie. I mean, that is the case. They started this fight because Donald Trump said, I want my five seats in Texas. I deserve my five seats in whatever. And it just reminded me so many times when I first got up to Congress, you know, a certain speaker would do something, plan something, and it seemed

like the greatest idea. And then the Democrats would go, oh, okay, well, we're going to do this in response. And I remember time and time again, people standing up going new. great idea, but you've got to start planning your response to their response to your great idea. And that's what's happened here. The Democrats are going to end up, you know, at least doing as well in redistricting. And then here comes a real rub for Republicans. You cut these districts too close, like they're thinking about now doing in the state of Florida. and mark my words, Florida, you cut these districts too close.

In an election that's a bit of a landslide, like this year's probably going to be, then suddenly you take a really bad situation and make it much, much worse. So instead of losing 20 seats, you might lose 35 or 40 seats because the margins have been trimmed down to supposedly help one party or the other, but then the tidal wave comes. So again, Ari Fleischer was right there. They should have never started this. And anybody that dares complains about what the Democrats are doing, have to remember it's all in response to something that was completely avoidable.

And completely predictable as well. I mean, Governor Newsom in California said even when they were talking about redistricting in Texas, okay, then we'll do that in California too. And then that spread around. Illinois said, all right, we'll do that in Illinois. And now last night we see we'll do it in Virginia too. but this is what happens when you have a party whose membership blindly follows Donald Trump down every path. They don't stop, perhaps, to consider the consequences.

And so what you had last night in Virginia, and we'll talk to Governor Spenberger, by the way, in just a few minutes here on Morning Joe, was a reaction to that that could, in fact, swing control of the House come this fall. You know, there are principled stands where Democrats say, well, we shouldn't do the bad thing that Republicans are doing, too. but then I think there are a lot of Democrats this morning who appreciate the fight that Virginia Democrats showed and said, you know what? If they're going to play the game this way, then we have to play it this way too. And if we play, we're going to win. And last night they did. The margin wasn't huge.

Republicans are taking some solace in that. But at the end of the day, there's not much solace to be taken in the fact that they're going to lose a whole bunch of seats in Virginia. Yeah, yet another loss. And John Lemire, Republicans again, already growing skeptical of. a lot of Donald Trump's suggestions, especially if you look over at the Senate majority, where he comes over and says, you have to change the filibuster. No, we're not going to change the filibuster because we do that now. Democrats are going to do it to us and we're going to get run over.

There's so many things that, again, Donald Trump has suggested that the Senate does, that you've had Thune and others pushing back, not because they wouldn't like that short-term gain, but they know the long-term consequences are bad. It's like attacking the Pope. They're attacking the Pope. Now, maybe that feels good on Easter morning or whenever the president decides he's going to attack the Pope.

But why? That's not going to work out well for you. It's bad. I don't know why that would feel good for any president to do. To be the first president. I guess, you know, he always wants to be different. So he's thinking, I'm going to do something by golly that no president

has ever done before I'm going to attack the Pope. And he did. And J.D. Vance attacked the Pope. And then they said, we're going to do something that is never done. We're going to redistrict in the middle of the decade and see how that goes. And then the president says, I'm going to do something that seven presidents haven't done before, I'm going to attack Iran. There's a reason seven presidents before him didn't attack Iran. Because while they're all scratching their heads going, the strait of war moves way, who would have ever thought about that? Every president thought about that. Every national security advisor thought about that. Every secretary of defense thought about that. Every commerce secretary thought about that. Every person around a president in the

National Security Agency thought about that. But they just went ahead and did it. And right now, here we are. Is it open? Is it closed? There are ships that are being fired upon right now. So you can look at Iran. You can look at redistricting. You can look at tearing down the east wing of the White House. You're going to look, of course, at redistricting. And again, all of these things were the president acts just on gut instinct, there's always blowback. And usually, usually, it's not good for the Republican Party. There's an AP poll out this morning, which I'm sure the president will say is fake news, but an AP poll that has him at a 33% approval rating. Now, I haven't seen numbers that low since George W. Bush, the low points of the Iraq war. Well, there's a reason. Iraq, Iran,

they sound the same. You just change a cue for an end. You get into a quagmire over there. You could make the argument that while Iran poses a grave threat to the world, you can make the argument that if the president gets out without the straight open and without getting rid of the nuclear material there and Iran's nuclear program, this will actually be a bigger geopolitical defeat than Iraq, because we've totally screwed up the entire world economy. But my goodness, Tehran's a long way from Richmond, Virginia, which is where this conversation started. But I don't know, Jonathan, maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just the fact that the Red Sox can't hit the ball. I don't know. I just saw a line, a through line through all of that. And I just also wanted to get you

agitated before I got to you. Go, John. You take it. A little bit of the weave there from Joe Scarborough this morning to start our day. But you're right. There is a reason we know President Trump is drawn to doing things his predecessors couldn't or wouldn't do. Well, President Trump, there's a reason why sometimes your predecessors couldn't or wouldn't do these things. First, credit to the Democrats last night. This is a testament of organization and passion. The enthusiasm is on their side. They have now beat the Republicans at their own game. I think we can agree that this mid-cycle redistricting, probably not great for our democracy writ large, but it's in play right now. Democrats get a win. Attacking the Pope, there's a reason why presidents don't go after the Holy See. You know,

we have seen that really play poorly politically for President Trump. And now in Iran, yes, I mean, the straight-in-form moves, we could pretty much say definitively closed still. There are going to be widespread ramifications for that for as long as it stays shut. Their attack, tankers attacked last night by Iran. We getting reports this morning. And yes, Joe, to your point, if the war were to end, this as more or less where we are now, this status quo, or even if the strait reopens, but Iran has more control over it, it's hard to assess this conflict as anything more than a defecive.

for the United States. And it adds to what has been a real losing streak for Trump and Republicans. And Willie, that poll that we just showed, it also has the 31% of Republicans disapprove of the job President Trump is doing. That is a gigantic number for a president who has commanded such loyalty from his own party. And, of course, you had 33% overall approval dreadful. And though Trump's name's not on the ballot, he shadows, he overshadows this coming election. And not only do strategists of both parties think the House is firmly in the Democratic column, maybe by a significant margin, there are more and more analysts in both sides of the aisle who think the Senate now may be leaning that way too. It's going to be real close because the map is inherently favorable to Republicans, but more and more states seem to be in play.

Democrats are feeling much better about their chances. Just look at that independent number, 23% approval of the voters that decide those elections in the fall. much more on these numbers and much more in Virginia coming up in just a moment. But let's get right into President Trump saying he is extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely until talks are concluded, quote, one way or the other. The president made that announcement yesterday on social media just one day before the two-week truce was set to expire. Trump said that at the request of Pakistani mediators, he would hold off on attacking Iran until the country's fractured government. In his words, can come up with a unified proposal. The president, however, added the U.S. military blockade of Iranian ports will remain in place.

A move Tehran previously called an act of war. The decision to extend the ceasefire was a significant shift from President Trump's rhetoric in recent days, in just yesterday, in fact, telling CNBC if a deal was not reached by that deadline, he, quote, expected to be bombing. Shortly after that, he extended the ceasefire deadline. Now, with that renewed truce in place, uncertainty surrounds the path to a person, agreement. The status of negotiations is in limbo. After several news outlets reported President J.D. Vance's planned trip to Islamabad yesterday was put on hold. Status of the pause and

hostilities already in doubt after an Iranian gunboat just this morning opened fire on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, while a second ship came under fire a short time later. That is according to the British military joke. Yeah, so, Caddy, we've talked for some time since this war broke out about the difference between Iraq under Saddam Hussein. You topple one dictator, basically the entire state infrastructure collapses, which happened there. And you go after Iran, and I know David Ignatius and I have had debates for years about the power structure there. How much more powerful are the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard? How powerful is Parliament?

because during past protests, there has been a give and take. Well, what Donald Trump's finding out right now is that they obviously killed the Ayatollah. They've killed a lot of other leaders, and they have ground down the leadership to perhaps some of the most radical, some of the most militant members of the Revolutionary Guard. And so now the White House is trying to figure out exactly who's in charge because you have members of the parliament, people who are negotiating, debating with the Revolutionary Guard, who seems to want to place a veto over any deal made with the United States. So the question is, you know, can they make a deal? Don't know. I guess they have to find the

people in Iran that have the ability to finish that deal once and for all. Yeah, I mean, I was talking to somebody who'd been involved in the 2015 negotiations and ask them, You know, if you had this crew to negotiate against that's in the position now, basically the IRGC running things, could you have got the JCPOA negotiating? And they said, not a hope. I mean, it just wouldn't have been possible because when they were negotiating, they knew that Javad Zarif had the blessing of the Ayatollah to go and do the negotiations. And so it was simple.

It was much simpler in some way. It was a very tricky negotiation. But at least you knew that the person you were sitting across the table from during those 20 months of face-to-face negotiations had the power of the leaders of Iran to do the deal that needed to be done. That's just not the case now. I mean, now you had the people that turned up in Pakistan go back home and being attacked back at home politically for what they had negotiated back in Pakistan. So I think that's part of the problem that they're dealing with, right, Ed, is that you have, not only do you have confusion here in Washington about what Donald

Trump wants because it seems to be multiple different things during the course of the day, except that what he really wants is to get out of this, whatever it takes. But they don't know who they're negotiating with in Iran. I mean, do you see any prospect now? I mean, people have said we were pretty close to a deal last time around. It's the framework of a deal where we stand today on this Tuesday morning with ships being attacked in the Straits of Hormuz. Do you see any chances for this being resolved in a way that suits America soon?

I don't think Iran is in a hurry to. to restart these talks, have meaningful talks, let alone the sort of 20 months it took to negotiate the Obama deal, 20 months. And that was with, as you say, a unified Iranian regime with a clear negotiating policy and indeed an American negotiating team

that included nuclear experts. Now, the last time but one, the Iranians negotiated with Americans. It was with Steve Wickev and Jared Kushner on the 27th of February in Geneva, it turns out that Trump was going to attack Iran anyway, that that was a kabuki negotiation. So, you know, you can have some understanding why the Iranians don't think there are good faith negotiations going on here and don't really trust Wickhoff and Kushner.

Vance might be a different deal because he's not a pro-war monger, I guess. but the idea that Iran is going to sort of stamp a framework which would include bargaining away the one thing it seizes its trump card namely it's enriched uranium and its chokehold on the strait of all moves

easily is I think a little bit of its wishful thinking and they know that Trump is more desperate to end this than they are. They have taken you know, 40-something days of pummeling, they've taken many years of economic sanctions. They've got a higher pain threshold. I think it's safe to say than the American team. And the longer that goes on, the more desperate Trump will be for an exit ramp and therefore their terms will improve. So I don't see a deal anytime soon. And that puts us at great risk of sudden escalations

and a return to bombing. It's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a deal. position if you were president of the United States you would want to be in. But then again, you know, he did put himself in this position. And to what end? The bombing resumes and then what comes after that. Let's talk more about that new APNORC poll that finds President Trump's approval rating at an all-time low. As we told you a minute ago, it shows 33% of Americans approve of Trump's job performance down from 38% last month. When broken down by party, 31% of Republicans, as John just mentioned, now disapprove of President Trump's job performance. That's a big number considering where he's been historically.

And as the Iran war drives up fuel and energy prices, the poll shows Trump losing support when it comes to his handling of the economy specifically. That approval on the issue has fallen to 30 percent down eight points from last month. On the war itself, 32 percent approve of his handling of the conflict with Iran, down three points from last month versus 67 percent. who disapprove. So David Drucker, a lot to sift through there. I think when people responding to the polls say they disapprove the war in Iran, they do perhaps approve the military action. But I think what they're really saying is we also don't like gas at $4 a gallon as a result of the war we don't

understand. Yeah, that's correct. And it's not just, you know, filling your gas up at the, it's not just filling your car up at the pump. Well, airline tickets have skyrocketed. Yeah. Right. The cost of fertilizer is up. The cost. to ship goods is up. And so what has this done to the number one problem voters wanted the government to deal with? Inflation, the high cost of living, it's exacerbated all of it. So to the extent the administration could make a case that military action on Iran has made us safer and has reduced the threat, and here are the benefits right now. Voters aren't seen a benefit. I was on the hill yesterday talking to Republicans about how they feel about the president and the political

atmosphere, and you're not going to see them complaining too loudly about the president, but quietly everybody is aware of the political quagmire that this conflict has put them in, acknowledging that they weren't really in a great place to begin with. And that's, I think, being reflected in every poll that we see. And I think part of the problem, you know, as a matter of politics that Republicans are having now, is that even though we're in the midst of an extended ceasefire in Iran apparently, the idea that the war is concluded is something that it hasn't taken hold of voters because it isn't over, right? It's just, it's like Groundhog Day in a sense from a political standpoint. So every time the president extends this but doesn't reach a resolution,

it becomes a sort of, you know, political brass for Republicans. And that's just something that they don't really have control over or have a way out of themselves. Yeah, you know, I talked about this before. I went to an event for my son last weekend and was asked, is it straight open? Is it straight closed? What is it right now? And again, not from somebody that doesn't really follow politics an awful lot.

And they're just kind of like, what's going on here? This is absolute chaos. We're paying over $4 a gallon. when's this going to end? And the president has said repeatedly it's going to end, but he knows he can't have it end until there's a deal on the straight and until there's a deal on nuclear. But really, you look at those numbers. They're extraordinarily low. You look at the Republican numbers. They're sitting up at disapproval in the 30s. There's going to be polls that have different numbers. But you've just got, you've got to believe after some time that

when you have Megan Kelly, who has a huge following, when you have Tucker, a huge following, when you have them every day, being critical of this war, being critical, Marjorie Taylor Green, being critical on the Epstein files, you have costs continuing to rise. That is going to add up after some time. And Tucker Carlson will, Alex, if we can get a clip, Tucker had a remarkable conversation with his brother Buckley yesterday where he apologized for ever supporting the president and said he made a terrible mistake and he was genuinely sorry for it and he'd feel remorseful about it for the rest of his life. That resonates with voters who have followed Tucker Carlson for a very long time, who followed Megan Kelly for a very long time. And these are not weak,

woke, left-wing socialists. These are very people who endorsed the president the strongest a year, year and a half ago. And that does at some point start to have a real impact. And I do want to just circle back really quickly. We have Iran. But what was everybody talking about before Iran? The Epstein files. And he, And here you had an entire movement based on sexual predators and them making up sexual predators in Hollywood or making up sexual predators with Pizza Gate or making up. But this was a massive driver. They went out to see movies about guys who were supposedly, you know, would brandish AR-15s and go to South America and go after child-prefutable. ended up that the person that that story was based on, had some questions asked of him.

But they were going to get it and clean this up. And even on the Epstein files, it's one cover up after another cover up, after another cover up. And when you have Joe Rogan talking about that, when you have all of these other people talking about that who were all in for Donald Trump, at some point that is going to start to show up in the polls. And I think that's what we're starting to see now. Yeah, there's been no resolution on the Epstein files. Pam Bondi, the now departed attorney general, did not get to the bottom of it, did not release all the files, as she promised. President Trump's name, of course, all over the Epstein files. And so perhaps this offered some kind of a distraction. Historians will analyze that for a long time, perhaps. But yeah, I mean,

you have some of those leading voices in the conservative movement, podcasters, people on cable news channels who have really, I mean, there's always been criticism and then they kind of pull back and fall back in line. But some of the criticism we've heard in the last couple of days sounds like a breakup. We'll see if it holds. If Donald Trump makes a phone call and there's a makeup, which does happen. But this war in particular feels to many like a betrayal of the America first agenda that Donald Trump and that no new war's agenda that he campaigned on and promised his supporters. And you're seeing some of that erosion in that poll. Still, a head this morning on Morning Joe, Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia joins our

conversation after voters in her state approved a new redistricting measure last night, giving Democrats an edge in the midterms. Plus, we'll show you the moment President Trump's Fed chair nominee, Kevin Warsh, declined to say whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Reno. Bernie, how's it looking out there? Will it lingering chill on our Wednesday, New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston. There'll be a little bit of rain in New York City and Philadelphia this morning, this afternoon, Portland, Boston.

Beautiful weather in Pittsburgh where they're getting ready for the NFL draft beginning on Thursday. Sunshine, Chicago, warm in St. Louis, warm and dry in the southeast. Some showers in Dallas. Watch out for a thunderstorm in Houston. Traveling along the eastern seaboard, you should be okay, despite the rain in New York City. Philadelphia and Boston. To help you make the best decisions of being more in the note. Download the ACUather app today. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Virginia voters have delivered a significant win to Democrats approving a constitutional amendment allowing the state's Democratic-controlled legislature to redraw congressional districts ahead of this year's midterms. The amendment lets lawmakers implement a new map through the year 2030, which could allow Democrats to win 10 of the state's 11 congressional seats. That's up from the six the party currently controls. And Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia joins us now. Governor, good morning to you. You, of course, served in the Congress in Virginia.

You flipped a seat back in 2018 yourself. Democrats traditionally have been against this kind of gerrymandering, against this kind of changing of congressional map. So can you just take a step back for us and explain why you supported us? this, why people like President Obama even supported this effort in Virginia? Absolutely. And I think what's most important is that the individual voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia ultimately voted on this referendum and passed it. Really, this all began when President Trump said that he believed he was entitled to congressional seats and that the legislature at the time in Texas responded, responded by redistricting without the input of the

people to ensure that he got what he wanted. And so as we have seen efforts at redistricting in other states, Virginia created a plan that was wholly responsive to the actions of other states and temporary in nature, very clearly preserving our bipartisan redistricting commission into the future. And importantly, that had to go through our General Assembly for two votes before going on the ballot for referendum for voters. And so what is important and I think different than certainly what Texas did in Virginia is that the maps, that the legislature was proposing was before the people, and people very much understood that this is temporary, responsive, and they knew what they were voting for. And that when this passed, it would be because individual voters,

and millions of Virginians had decided to take this step. And that's why the referendum passed, because Virginians recognize the current state of where we are, want to preserve that bipartisan commission into the future, but want to take this responsive step at the moment. Governor, obviously there's good news for Democrats in the state of Virginia. Do you worry at all, though, about a kind of an arms race now where every state in the country, because this is supposed to remind our viewers happen every 10 years after the census.

That's when you redraw the maps. Do you worry that states, districts all over the country now will just go tit for tat trying to do this, not every 10 years, but whenever they feel the need? I certainly think that that is a fair concern, which is why absolutely when Democrats take a majority in the House of Representatives, My hope and expectation will be that there will be serious conversations about redistricting reforms and the process by which all 50 states will take on redistricting efforts. But I think essential to the conversation, as I mentioned in Virginia, was our commitment to our bipartisan commission. And so I think it's important that every step along the way, we weren't saying, okay, this is the new normal of this kind of tit for tat. we were saying at this moment we are taking a responsive and temporary step, and we in the Commonwealth

of Virginia are committed to getting back to that bipartisan commission. So I think that that was an essential part of the discussion here. And certainly as governor and as a Virginian, I am going to continue to uphold that mantle that our goal should be that when we no longer have a reckless president who just believes he's entitled to congressional seats, that we will ensure that Virginia leads the way in going back to our redistricting commission, as the amendment that we passed yesterday calls on us to do. You know, Governor, it's fascinating. This, of course, got drowned out with all the screeches and the howls

and the whining of Republicans who were claiming that this was a Marxist power grab, or you were supposed to be a moderate, and you ended up being a communist, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What it sounds like is that you have created as conservative, with a small C as conservative a defensive response to the radicalism that took place in Texas. And, I mean, if you could, again, just compare what you've done by making a temporary, temporary defensive measure, by taking it to the voters and saying, you all decide, we're not going to have legislators decide in backrooms what they're going to do. And third, saying, and when this is over, we're going to send it back to our bipartisan redistricting commission.

Can you compare and contrast what you did in Virginia with what Texas legislators and the Republican governor did there? Happily. And I think importantly, this is the important and vital work of the Virginia General Assembly, our Speaker of the House, Don Scott, our majority leader, Scott Surreville, our chairwoman of the Finance Committee, Louise Lucas, who have been leaders on this issue. Back when I was a candidate before I was even sworn in, because our process is a multi-step process. And the General Assembly crafted legislation carefully and purposefully to say, we saw what happened in Texas. When the president said he's entitled to seats, that legislature came together. and redistricted without any input from the voters, without any engagement from the voters, and just summarily changed their districts to try and appease the president.

In Virginia, we're going to do it differently. We recognize the stakes of this moment. We recognize the seriousness of what is occurring in other states, whether it's North Carolina or Texas or Missouri. We will be responsive, but we are also responsive to the people. And so the legislature drew up the legislation for this referendum that was carefully tailored. It would be temporary, responsive. It explicitly preserves our bipartisan commission into the future. And then by our process, it would go to the people.

So we set up this April referendum, which is an unusual time in Virginia for us to have a special election or a referendum vote. And we made it, our mission to ensure that people not only knew, what that referendum was, but importantly to me, as the incoming governor, to provide that transparency. So people knew, and we pushed it out over a month ago, two months ago, what those maps would be. So people knew they were voting for a temporary, responsive redistricting, and they knew what the maps would be. They knew what they were signing up for. And ultimately, having it go to the people to vote it up or down was an important choice, constitutionally required. based on our system in Virginia, but vitally necessary for us to be able to say we are very different

from what they did in Texas, where it was kind of just a partisan effort, political effort within their legislature. Here, the legislature teed it up, and then we said to the people of Virginia, now it's up to you. You know, certainly we were out about encouraging people to vote yes. But the no campaign was strong. It was ample. It featured millions of dollars worth of television ads and mailers, you know, misrepresenting my position and President Obama's position trying to trick people. But in the end, Virginia voters understood that the legislature and we had given them the power to make this choice, and I think they made the right one. In the end, it was a three-point margin in that election, a six-five congressional advantage

for Democrats in Virginia could be come as much as 10 to one advantage in Virginia. Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger of the state of Virginia. Thanks so much, Governor. We appreciate it. Thank you. Now we've got to win the seats in November. That's the next task. On you go. Thanks so much, Governor. Coming up, we'll get to the new piece from Ed Luce in the Financial Times titled, Why America is falling out of love with Israel. Morning Joe's coming right back. So looking back being, because, I mean, you and I and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaign for him.

I mean, we're implicated in this for sure. Yes. it's not enough to say, well, I changed my mind or like, oh, this is bad, I'm out. It's like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now. Yes. So I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences.

You know, we'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say, I'm sorry for misleading people and it was not intentional. That's all I'll say. So Willie, remarkable stuff there. Guy we both know,

you worked with him as his EP. In fact, that's where we met, throwing, I think, Nerf footballs throughout the building of what is what is now MLB, yeah, out in Sycoccus.

I mean, what else are you going to do in a strip mall in Sycoccus? High ceiling, you could throw the deep ball too, Joe. That was a nice part about it. Really could. I mean, yeah. And I guess that's where the MLB guys are now, right? Yeah, that's right.

Playing wiffle ball in the commercial breaks. We're going to go over there. One of these days we're going to go through the tunnel and we're going to play wiffle ball and take those guys on. But we'll talk about that. That would be fun. What's your pitch? What's your best?

At the height of your Wiffleball fame, what was your best pitch? It was like a knuckle curve. It would just dance. You know how a wiffle ball does. You cover the right holes on the wiffle ball. It looks like it's coming in straight and then just tails fast.

That's the one. What about you? That's miserable. My brother had one of those. He also had a sinker that just literally would just drop off. Now, you know, I would first, of course, because my brother was older, I first would go high and inside to pull him back because I had no chance.

But then I'd whip a curveball from the side and, you know, go full speed. Yeah. You got to find the new arm slot instead of coming over at the head. You come the arm slot here. And, you know, those things are so great because it starts behind the back and then, you cuts pretty fast. The Laredo slider. Or you go like full submarine Kent to Colvey and just throw that riser.

So they're swinging over their heads after. That actually, yeah, that actually works too. I have trouble controlling that one, though. So what were we talking about? I don't remember. What were we talking about? Talker, I think it was. Oh, yeah.

State of the nation, war, peace, wiffle ball. But anyway, by the way, I'm a little hurt. You haven't even mentioned that I'm wearing the sweater that many people were calling Cal Ripkin, the Cal Ripkin sweater of, I think it was the winner of a, 11 and 12 where I wore the same sweater. It was sort of my protest. It was sort of a waspy protest wearing a Lansan and crewneck sweater. But I think I wore it every day for like six months to protest having to wake up early in like 10 degree weather.

Yeah. And we could tell which flavor of donuts you had every morning. Just was there a little glaze? Was there a sprinkle? Was there some chocolate? And we knew what breakfast was. It was great. Yeah.

And they guess a constellation. too. And now from that to Tucker. So, you know, there have been a lot of people that have been saying, oh, well, these are Justin. It's what I was saying as well when the polls didn't seem to show anything different. But a lot of people were saying, well, it's just the talkers. It's just the people on podcasts, on TV. But you see Tucker Carlson say something like that yesterday. Tucker, of course, has been wildly popular when he was at Fox News, his podcast. wildly popular. The same thing with Megan Kelly.

Megan Kelly has made some extraordinary piercing and actually, I think, pretty tough indictments against this administration and the war in Iran, what was promised while they were running, what they're doing now. Of course, Marjorie, Taylor Green, and many other people. And again, yeah, these are people who have said many things we disagree with. but we're not the audience. The audience are the people that voted for Donald Trump. It's hard to find three people who are more persuasive in making the argument that Donald Trump

should be president of the United States in 2024 than Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and Marjorie Taylor Green. And now all three of them, for a variety of reasons, have done what Tucker just did there and said, I made a mistake and I didn't do it intentionally, but it's something I'm going to have to live with for quite some time. It was very telling. He and his brother Buckley, very telling what they said yesterday. Yeah, and all the people you mentioned there, including Tucker, are not just news analysts to a lot of people. They're a news source. Much as it may be dismaying to us, a lot of young people are not watching shows like this or network television to get their news. They open their phone and they

listen to what someone they trust like Tucker or Megan or Ben Shapiro or Joe Rogan, you can go down the list, what they're saying on Instagram and a short clip. And that clip from Tucker has resonated quite a bit over the last couple of days. So we have seen these moments before. We'll see if it holds. I mean, Joe Rogan a couple of days ago was ripping Donald Trump about the war in Iran. And then the next day, he was standing behind him in the Oval Office of the White House on a separate issue in fairness. But we'll see. We'll see if it holds. But certainly this is really searing criticism in a way we haven't seen. And there was more in a new piece in the conservative publication, the Washington Examiner, titled Donald Trump is losing

his mind. Former conservative member of the European Parliament, a guy named Dan Hanan writes this, quote, imagine it was someone other than President Donald Trump. Suppose a different leader were posting deranged rants in the small hours, insulting the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, threatening entire civilizations with annihilation and comparing himself to God. What would be the reaction? We all know the answer. Both parties would be rushing to bundle him out of office before he did irreversible harm to the republic. Yet, as we all also know, different rules apply to Trump.

Democrats, having had their fingers burned by two failed impeachment attempts, are reluctant to try again, for they know that there is no sure way to boost his support. Republicans who privately despair at the electoral damage he is doing, let alone the constitutional damage, are paralyzed by fear of upsetting their primary voters. Everyone around him can see it. Yet whether from ambition, cowardice, or weary acceptance, they keep looking for ways to rationalize his behavior. The tragedy is no longer Trump's.

It is now Americas. Again, that's from the Washington Examiner written by a very conservative writer there, John. Yeah, the venue for this piece was eye-opening. The Washington Examiner usually cheers on what President Trump does and that his agenda. But this is now the latest in a series of voices here. And look, we have played this game for a decade in terms of like, what would the reaction be if President Obama, President Biden, President Clinton, whoever it is, insert Democrat, did what President Trump just did. But the author here picks a couple of good examples. You know, comparing yourself to God and threatening to wipe out a civilization, that's a new place.

And I do think we are seeing more questions about President Trump's fitness for office, not necessarily his mental acuity, but his erraticism and the decisions he is making. And Republicans are right now also saying we're worried. And we saw the new polling caddy from the AP. Just put it up right there. Not only are, I mean, 31% of Republicans now disapprove of President Trump's behavior. a shocking number for someone who has commanded auto fealty from the

GOP. Only 23% of independents do approve, and this all combined leaves you with a net approval rating overall, 33%, just a dreadful number for President Trump. And a number that I caddy, I think, is

impacted by this behavior, by this, you know, sort of this more than erratic, but at times downright nonsensical and dangerous rhetoric that most Americans are saying, this is not what we want out of our president. This is not what we voted for. This is not making our life any better. Yeah. If you look at the recent history of polling, it's clearly the combination of the

erraticism combined with taking the country to war that has Republicans upset. We were all talking about the polls at the very beginning of the war that showed that Republicans were by and large with President Trump. They were still at 80 to 90 percent approval rating of the president and now to have that 31% disapproval rating. That is the most striking number to me in all of those polling numbers. But Dan Hanna, Edluse, in the Washington Examiner, is saying that this is America's problem. If you look around the world, a lot of what has happened very recently, particularly with the invasion of Iran, is other countries' problems as well.

The UAE is suffering. Europe is suffering because of this. All of Asia is suffering because of this. And, of course, Israel is suffering as well because of this, because of the U.A.E.E. its relationship with America being so badly damaged by this. You've been writing in your latest piece for the Financial Times is titled, Why America is Falling Out of Love with Israel. In it you write, quote, who in America remembers Yitzhak Rabin? It's safe to bet that few under 50 would recall the courageous Israeli leader who sought peace with the Palestinians.

His 1994 assassination by an Israeli extremist prompted the country's rightward turn into the age of Benjamin Netanyahu. That shows no signs of waning. There should be no mystery as to why younger Americans are as pro-Palestinian today as their forbear as were once pro-Israeli. Rabin state his life on peace. What will posterity say of Netanyahu? Ed, do you think this shift that we're seeing a remarkably fast shift

amongst Americans away from Israel? Does it last beyond this war? Does it last beyond this president? does it last beyond this prime minister? I mean, the last bit, this prime minister is pretty key. I think Netanyahu has gone out of his way to change the way in which Israel interacts with America. And that began, well, began really at the beginning of his career,

but that was escalated in 2015 when he spoke to the joint houses of Congress against the sitting president, Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, you know, calling it a very bad deal and historic mistake. that hasn't happened before. That's not acceptable. It breaks all protocol.

And therefore made himself a Republican and Israel a Republican. So there are two trends within American public opinion falling out of love with Israel. One is Democrats, who used to be actually the moral pro-Israeli party, Democrats are really shifting very dramatically. I think you watch what people like Rahm Emanuel, who is the first to point out, his middle name is Israel. served in the IDF, he's saying we should cut off the $3.8 billion of annual aid to Israel, and if necessary, not sell Israel arms if it breaks the rules of war. That's a very strong position. 40 out of 47 Democratic senators, including a majority of Jewish-American senators,

voting to ban arms sales to Israel last week. And then the other trend is young people. I mean, it's an extraordinary number in that NBC poll over the weekend that three quarters of Gen Z of 18 to 29-year-olds view Palestinians more favorably, the Palestinian cause more favorably than Israel. That is a number that is going to settle, the more the boomers die off and they sort of come to age. It's a very, if you're Israeli or pro-Israel, which I am, it's a very disturbing number. Yeah, it is. David Druckert is such a disturbing number. I mean, the people that are left, that's sort of the strong base of support for Israel right now are evangelicals and older Americans. You look at the numbers in all of these polls, and they're absolutely devastating, in part because people have seen the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza. Now they're seeing Netanyahu continue the fight up up. up to Lebanon. It's been an endless war. And you have the Secretary of State that has blamed

Israel in his first pronouncement for dragging us into the war in Iran. What is the political impact? We know what, certainly know, you can already see what the political impact is going to be in the Democratic Party. I'm curious about it. In the Republican Party, what is that impact going to be, especially among younger voters, who've also turned against Israel? Yeah, and this is something, Joe, that I've been reporting on for over a year. It was about a year ago this time that I started to detect from talking to people that younger conservatives, younger populists, had the same issues with Israel that a lot of left-wing progressives have had for quite some time. And so the prime minister has positioned

Israel as an ally of the Republican Party. And look, to some degree, a lot of this is understandable if you look at it from a short-term play, because Israel has been threatened by Iran, and Iran has threatened Israel with extinction for years. And then you have October 7, 2023, when Hamas invades southern Israel and deliberately targets and murders innocent civilians. It wasn't an accident. it was the plan, right? And that precipitated everything we have seen since. But domestically, in the United States, a lot of younger voters on the right and the left look at Israel as not a country under threat, but a power player in the Middle East who is a lot, who's a lot more capable than a lot of their neighbors. And even though you make this case that Israel has a lot

justification for doing what they've been doing. And I think there is a really good case to make. A lot of voters in America just look at it differently and there's a focus on Israel. One, because a lot of younger voters are tired of investing American blood and treasure abroad, right? And it's not even just about the Middle East, but the Middle East is just where we've been so involved. And I don't really know how you get out of this because Israel has position itself as an ally of the GOP, and the GOP has used that to its benefit or to its perceived benefit for the last decade plus. And so it's alienated Democrats, but it also hasn't helped them with younger conservatives. And so this is something that maybe gets undone when a new prime

minister takes office. But one of the things you're not going to see in Israel because of all that that country has experienced is voters embracing a two-state solution. time soon. The threats from the Palestinians and from Iran has that that has killed that in Israel. And so to the extent that that is what's necessary to re-energize broad bipartisan support in the United States, you don't see it, which leaves us in a place of deep uncertainty. Yeah. And you know, Willie, though, the thing is, for Republicans who have been suggesting that they're going to get this great political windfall because Donald Trump was so pro-Israel, It's just never come.

70% of Jews in America voted for Kamala Harris. 70% of Jews in America voted for Joe Biden, for Barack Obama. I mean, Hillary Clinton, that's the way it's usually seemed. The numbers usually have been

fairly consistent there. I mean, the thing that's important to remember here that, we need to underline the fact that yes, yes, Israel certainly had every right to defend itself against the worst killing of Jews that occurred in Israel and the worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust. They responded.

It's important to underline the fact that about two years ago, David Ignatius was on this show and said that Israeli military leaders and Israeli intel officials have said, you've hit all the military targets you can hit. It's time for us to draw this war down. Benjamin Netanyahu, as has been explained time and time again, does not want to draw any war down. He wants to keep fighting because every time we asked any questions about how the attacks happened, what's the answer? Oh, after the war. We'll tell you what happened after the war.

We'll tell you how Benjamin Netanyahu allowed Hamas to come into Israel and kill Jews for 12, 13, 14 hours without being able to stop it. We'll tell you how he couldn't do that, and yet he was able to set off pagers in the pockets of members of Hezbollah or kill members of Hamas's leadership as they slept in beds, in palaces, in Tehran. And so the music's never stopped. The war has continued. It is an endless war. Now he is flattening half of Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah, which was supposedly destroyed in those pager attacks. And so, yeah, there are a lot of Americans that are exhausted. And when they hear their Secretary of State saying the reason we went to war with Iran is because Israel was going to Iran war with Iran first, so we had to be a part of that. Yeah, it's going to turn a lot of people off. And Benjamin Netanyahu, as a longtime supporter of Israel, I have been concerned for a very long time that Benjamin Netanyahu is causing damage to the state of Israel in America and ways. that it just hasn't happened before.

And it is going to have long-lasting ramifications for America's support for Israel. And that's at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu. And there was that extraordinary New York Times piece from Maggie Haberman a couple of weeks ago where it laid out in detail the pitch that Benjamin Netanyahu made directly to President Trump for the war in Iran. And when he left in the situation room, you had people like General Kane saying, view Netanyahu with skepticism on this. and in fact the president did not and went along and here we are now in Iran.

Ed Luce of the Financial Times, Ed, thank you. Ed's latest piece available to read online now. David Drucker, thank you as well. Check out David's latest piece for Bloomberg titled, Nobody seems to like the filibuster. They should.